October 25, 2018 — The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management published a notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement on plans by Deepwater Wind to develop the South Fork Wind Farm roughly 30 miles off the coast of Montauk.

BOEM will lead the federal review of Deepwater Wind’s proposal to construct up to 15 wind turbines as a part of its South Fork Wind Farm Project. The New York State Public Service Commission will lead the state review of the project.

According to a press release issued by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, the notice was published in the Federal Register on October 19 and will have a 30-day public comment period that will close on November 19.

“The U.S. is making offshore wind a major priority for our energy future. The South Fork Wind Farm, New York’s first offshore wind farm, will be a centerpiece of that vision,” said Deepwater Wind CEO Jeffrey Grybowski in a statement. “Starting the EIS review is a major step forward for the South Fork Wind Farm and an important milestone. This extensive review will examine the project’s Construction and Operations Plan (COP) and related environmental considerations.

“The public will have the opportunity to review the COP and to provide their input to BOEM at three community meetings held in East Hampton, in Rhode Island and in Massachusetts, or through written comment. Our timeline is right on-schedule. We’re on-track to begin construction on the South Fork Wind Farm once the EIS and permits are in-hand, by 2021, and to deliver clean energy to the South Fork starting in 2022.”

October 24, 2018 — The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is taking steps that could lead to offshore wind farms along the East and West coasts.

BOEM on Oct. 19 asked companies to indicate their interest in developing three areas off the coast of California. BOEM is part of the Department of the Interior.

The parcels off California’s central and northern coastline total about 687,825 acres, but BOEM said it would consider changing the size of areas eligible for wind leases. BOEM delineated the areas in consultation with an interagency task force and the state of California.

BOEM this year received an unsolicited lease request from the Redwood Coast Energy Authority, which is leading an effort to develop a wind farm offshore Humboldt County, according to the agency.

In March, the RCEA, a joint powers agency, selected a group of companies to develop the offshore project, including Principle Power, EDPR Offshore North America, Aker Solutions, H.T. Harvey & Associates and Herrera Environmental Consultants. The group aims to bring the wind farm into service in 2025.

Also, in early 2016, BOEM received an unsolicited lease request from Trident Winds for a project off Morro Bay, according to the agency.

October 24, 2018 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — A heavy-lift pier in this South Coast fishing port will see plenty of use as a staging area for the nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm.

Vineyard Wind on Monday signed a $6 million annual lease to use the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal for at least 18 months. The total comes to $9 million unless the lease is extended.

The 29-acre marine terminal, owned and operated by the quasi-public Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, was custom-built to support the construction, assembly, and transport of offshore wind components. It is equipped with mobile crane and load features “that rival the highest capacity ports in the world,” and also handles other large marine cargo, according to the agency.

Vineyard Wind in May won a state contest to provide Massachusetts utilities with 800 megawatts of clean power. It has leased a 160,000 acre federal area 14 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard. The company plans an underwater transmission cable that will land on Cape Cod.

October 23, 2018 — Massachusetts’ Baker-Polito administration and Vineyard Wind have announced a lease agreement to use the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal as the primary staging and deployment location for Vineyard Wind’s offshore development.

Constructed and operated by the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC), the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal is a 29-acre heavy-lift facility designed to support the construction, assembly and deployment of offshore wind projects, as well as handle bulk, break-bulk, container and large specialty marine cargo. The new agreement between MassCEC and Vineyard Wind represents a commitment to an 18-month lease at $6 million annually.

“By signing this lease agreement with Vineyard Wind, we have achieved another major milestone to secure long-term jobs and economic growth for the people of Massachusetts,” says Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito. “Establishing an offshore wind supply chain in Massachusetts is critical to our mission to strengthen our economy while reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.”

In April, MassCEC released a report on the workforce needs and economic impact of the emerging offshore wind industry. It found that the deployment of 1,600 MW of offshore wind is estimated to support 6,870-9,850 job years over the next 10 years and generate a total economic impact in Massachusetts of $1.4 billion-$2.1 billion.

“The New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal provides Massachusetts with an important piece of infrastructure that will be critical in helping the offshore wind industry to establish operations in this new American marketplace,” says Stephen Pike, CEO of MassCEC.

“Today’s announcement not only cements Vineyard Wind’s commitment to stage the nation’s first industrial-scale offshore wind project from the Port of New Bedford, but it reinforces New Bedford’s leadership position in offshore wind energy,” adds New Bedford’s mayor, Jon Mitchell.

October 23, 2018 — Under President Trump, the federal government and the nation’s most populous state have clashed on a number of fronts when it comes to energy and environmental policy.

But there’s at least one thing California and the Trump administration can agree on. Both want to erect wind turbines off of the state’s coast.

The Department of the Interior took its first steps last week toward developing offshore wind energy off the West Coast. “We’re opening the Pacific,” Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said Wednesday at a wind energy conference in Washington.

“Regardless of what you read in the news, I get along with Jerry Brown,” Zinke added, referring to the outgoing Democratic governor of California who has emerged as one of the fiercest critics of the Trump administration’s energy policies. “Some things are not Republican or Democrat. A lot of things are red, white and blue.”

October 23, 2018 — If all goes as planned, an underwater transmission cable for the nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind plant will land at a Cape Cod beach.

Barnstable officials on Thursday agreed to grant Vineyard Wind a power cable easement at Covell Beach in the village of Centerville. The vote followed negotiation of a host community agreement that will pay the town up to $32 million over the next 25 years.

Vineyard Wind, based in New Bedford, says it’s on schedule to build its wind power station 34 miles off Cape Cod and 14 miles from Martha’s Vineyard. The company plans 106 turbines in a $2 billion project, and hopes to be operational in 2021.

The state’s Energy Facilities siting Board will have final say over the cable route, and environmental and fisheries considerations are part of the discussion. Other state and federal permits are still needed.

Vineyard Wind is a 50-50 partnership between Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Avangrid Renewables, and was selected in May by state officials and utility representatives to supply 800 megawatts of renewable power to Massachusetts.

The project will reduce the state’s carbon emissions by over 1.6 million tons per year, the equivalent of removing 325,000 cars, and power 400,000 homes, the company stated.

On Friday, the federal Interior Department took the first steps to enable companies to lease waters in Central and Northern California for wind projects. If all goes as the state’s regulators and utilities expect, floating windmills could begin producing power within six years.

Such ambitions were precluded until now because of the depths of the Pacific near its shore, which made it difficult to anchor the huge towers that support massive wind turbines. “They would be in much deeper water than anything that has been built in the world so far,” said Karen Douglas, a member of the California Energy Commission.

Several contenders are expected to enter the bidding, equipped with new technology that has already been tested in Europe.

California’s determination to fully rely on carbon-free electricity by 2045, mandated in a bill signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in September, is forcing the state to look beyond solar power and land-based wind farms to meet the goal.

“We are early in the process here,” Ms. Douglas said, “but offshore wind has potential to help with our renewable energy goals.”

The potential rewards from offshore wind development are not without potential downsides, however, and will almost certainly not come without conflict. Development along California’s coast has long been a sensitive and highly regulated issue. As has happened elsewhere, there will surely be objections from those who feel their ocean views are being blighted. And the potential impact on birds, fisheries and marine mammals will be closely scrutinized.

At a Sept. 20 meeting in Massachusetts, Coast Guard officials and fishing industry groups proposed transit lanes through the leases to BOEM and wind developers Baystate Wind, Vineyard Wind and Deepwater Wind (since merged with Norwegian energy company Equinor, formerly known as Statoil).

“Representatives from the squid, groundfish, scallop, and other fisheries agreed that the two nautical-mile-wide transit corridors through the existing leases would provide the ability to safely transit to and from the fishing grounds. BOEM expects these, or similar, transit corridors to be finalized in the near future, and future lessees will be required to incorporate them into their plans,” the lease sale notice states.

October 22, 2018 — The following was released by the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance:

The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) will convene a one-day workshop on October 31st, 2018 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Warwick, Rhode Island from 9 am-5 pm. The workshop will have two objectives:

This facilitated workshop will include representatives from the affected fishing industry, the states of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, Vineyard Wind, Ørsted, Deepwater Wind, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, National Marine Fisheries Service, and others. We urge all interested fishing industry participants to attend and provide feedback on these critically important issues.

Background

The Massachusetts Fisheries Working Group on Offshore Wind has spent considerable time over the past several months developing consensus on transit corridors through the wind energy lease sites in federal waters off of Massachusetts and Rhode Island that are acceptable to the fishing industry from safety and operational perspectives. The Rhode Island Fisheries Advisory Board has also engaged at length on this issue. At its meeting on September 20th, the Massachusetts group finalized a document that represented broad consensus from fishing industry and other participants. That recommendation is described in the following map:

Since then, certain interests have stated that they will not support the recommendation and there is now a great deal of uncertainty regarding what transit lanes will ultimately be proposed and approved. Therefore, this workshop is intended to consider minor revisions to that recommendation in order to achieve certainty surrounding the transit issue, using the MA consensus document as a starting point for the discussion.

Additionally, Vineyard Wind is in the process of developing fisheries mitigation recommendations for its lease site, which it will finalize in the very near future. This forum will allow an opportunity for the fishing industry to provide general input on elements of a successful mitigation plan for Vineyard Wind’s consideration.

October 19, 2018 — The U.S. Department of the Interior is taking public comment on two possible areas for wind farms on the Central Coast.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is accepting interest in three sites off the California coast for potential wind development. One section would stretch from Cambria to San Simeon approximately 32 miles offshore, while a second site sits offshore the present Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant.

The third area for potential wind development in California is near Humboldt Bay. Much of California’s coastline is otherwise off-limits to offshore wind farms.

The U.S. Department of the Interior is accepting interest from companies who want to develop the wind sites. A 100-day public comment period is also open until January 27.

The administration hopes that will lead to the West Coast’s first offshore wind auction.